Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

Saturday, February 09, 2013

Poet Fights to Maintain Mongolia’s Nomadic Culture

February 7, 2013-Wall Street Journal - By Kit Gillet

Jonah M. Kessel
for The Wall Street Journal

Gombojavyn Mend-Ooyo was born
into a nomadic family and fears Mongolia is losing its appreciation for that
life. ‘It’s really difficult to bring back lost culture once it’s
gone.’

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia — As a student in the 1980s, Gombojavyn Mend-Ooyo formed
a secret literary society and wrote poetry filled with traditional nomadic
themes at a time when Mongolia, then a communist state, was trying to suppress
those values.Today he is considered the country’s poet laureate, and an important figure
in the fight to retain its traditional culture. As its fast-growing economy puts
its modernization into overdrive and draws its population away from its nomadic
roots, he has his work cut out for him.

Jonah M. Kessel
for The Wall Street Journal

Mr. Mend-Ooyo’s poetry often
evokes the Mongolian steppe.

“It is a big shame for us that the country is so focused on mining, at the
detriment of herders and the traditional ways of life,” says Mr. Mend-Ooyo, 60
years old, sitting behind his cluttered desk in an old Soviet building in Ulan
Bator. “It’s really difficult to bring back lost culture once it’s gone.”Born into a nomadic family, he spent his early years moving across the
steppe, herding goats and sheep throughout the day and listening to his elders
play traditional music on horsehead fiddles at night. “We would move 20 times in
a year,” he says. “Nomads feel the land has spirits and a soul, so we have songs
about each new place we move to.”Riding horses since the age of 3, Mr. Mend-Ooyo grew up when Mongolia was
under Russian control. His father taught him the indigenous Mongolia script by
drawing it in the snow that fell outside their circular tent, or ger, during the
long winter months — “since classes at school were taught only in the
Russian-influenced Cyrillic script,” he says. The family prayed nightly in
secret, hiding their Buddhist statues in a box during the day.As a teenager in the countryside, he got interested in writing, thanks in
part to Dorjiin Gombojav, a controversial poet and translator who had alienated
officials in Ulan Bator. As punishment, Mr. Gombojav had been sent to teach at
the rural school Mr. Mend-Ooyo attended.Full article